The present invention relates to a technique for displaying desired content (such content will hereinafter be referred to also as “displaying content”), such as music content like a musical score, by means of an information processing apparatus (or music content display apparatus), independent of a music reproduction apparatus (or electronic music apparatus), in relation to a music piece played or reproduced by the music reproduction apparatus (or electronic music apparatus). For example, the present invention relates to a technique for displaying a musical score of a music piece reproduced by an electronic musical instrument using a portable information processing apparatus independent of the body of the electronic musical instrument and a technique for automatically switching between portions of the musical score to be displayed (so-called “score page turning”) in accordance with a progression of the music piece reproduction.
Heretofore, electronic musical instruments have been known which display desired content intended for displaying (i.e., “displaying content”), such as a musical score and lyrics, on a display device provided on the body of the electronic musical instrument and automatically update the musical score and lyrics, displayed on the display device, in accordance with a progression of tones of a melody, automatic accompaniment etc. audibly generated or sounded on the basis of reproduction of user-desired music piece data. In such electronic musical instruments, musical-score-display controlling data are embedded in advance, for example, in music piece data (e.g., MIDI data) for an automatic accompaniment, and the musical score display on the display device is automatically updated in response to the musical-score-display controlling data being read out in accordance with a progression of reproduction of tones. With such an arrangement, a user itself does not have to take the trouble of turning over the pages of the musical score (i.e., does not have to perform so-called “score page turning operation”), and thus, the user can, for example, dedicate itself to practicing a performance of a melody or the like by actually operating a performance operator.
However, some electronic musical instruments have no display device or have only a small-size display device that does not have enough capability for displaying a musical score etc, in which case a musical score of course cannot be displayed on the electronic musical instrument. Thus, there has been proposed a technique for allowing an external display device, constructed independently of the body of an electronic musical instrument, to display a musical score, in order to realize a user's demand for displaying a musical score even where the electronic musical instrument has no display device or has only a small-size display device. One example of the technique for allowing an external display device to display a musical score related to tones being currently reproduced is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2001-265325 (hereinafter referred to as patent literature 1).
An apparatus disclosed in patent literature 1 is constructed to acquire, by means of a microphone, a tone including a performance sound of a musical instrument, voice, etc. audibly sounded from the body of the musical instrument via a speaker, extract a beat position and pitch through analysis of the acquired tone to thereby identify a performed position (reproduced position) of the tone, and automatically update a display of a musical score on the basis of the identified performed position (reproduced position) of the tone. Such musical score display update on the display device is realized by performing display switching control. According to the display switching control, two half pages, each including one or more measures, of a musical score are displayed simultaneously in two divided (e.g. upper and lower) display regions, and one of the upper and lower display regions, which is displaying a musical score portion for which performance has just been completed, is switched or updated to display a musical score portion of a next page of the musical score immediately following a musical score portion currently displayed in the other display region. Namely, with the musical score display control employed in the apparatus disclosed in patent literature 1, the display of each page of the musical score is updated, half page by half page, in accordance with a progression of performance of tones.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2002-314980 (hereinafter referred to as patent literature 2), for example, discloses a technique where music piece information is superimposed on audio data, and where content is identified by an external device on the basis of the audio data having the music piece information superimposed thereon.
Also known today is an approach of installing in advance a music application program (software program), designed to implement a predetermined music function, in an information processing apparatus, such as a slate-type personal computer (also called “tablet terminal”), so that the information processing apparatus can operate as an external display device etc. for displaying desired content (desired displaying content), such as a musical score and lyrics, through execution of the music application program.
As noted above, with the apparatus disclosed in patent literature 1, where display control of a musical score is performed on the basis of tones audibly generated or sounded via the speaker of the electronic musical instrument, a musical score portion related to tones to be performed cannot be automatically selected and displayed before the start of a performance when the tones have not been sounded yet. Thus, there is a need for a user to manually read out a musical score portion of desired tones or a musical score portion of a performance start position of the tones prior to the start of the performance; however, because a user's operation for that purpose has to be performed separately from a music piece data selection operation, which tends to be very cumbersome.
Further, with the technique where the musical score display control is performed on the basis of performed positions of tones sounded via the speaker, particularly if a performance tempo (or reproduction tempo) is not constant or if a user's performance technique is immature, beat detection and pitch detection cannot be performed appropriately, and thus, it tends to require a long time to identify the performed positions, and the performed positions may be identified erroneously. As a consequence, this technique would present a considerable possibility that the performed positions of the tones and display update of the musical score cannot be synchronized with each other appropriately. Similarly, if a jump has been made to a performed position, discontinuous with the preceding performed position, through fast forwarding or rewinding, an operation for re-identifying the new or jumped-to performed position would take a long time so that causing the musical score to follow the performed position tends to require a long time.
Further, because the musical score display control is performed on the basis of tones (tone signals) themselves of wide audible bands which tend to be difficult to pick up via a microphone due to ambient noise and the like, the aforementioned technique cannot accurately extract performed positions of the musical score due to influences of a reception environment of the microphone, so that automatic update of the musical score would easily stagnate.
Furthermore, with the apparatus disclosed in patent literature 2, which is constructed to merely identify content and is not constructed to perform any cooperative operation between devices, it is difficult to update displaying content, such as a musical score and lyrics, displayed on the external display device in accordance with a progression of tones.
Furthermore, an electronic musical instrument disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2007-249033 (patent literature 3) includes a display device, an external storage device, a communication interface (I/F), etc., so that it can display musical score data of a music piece, designated through a user's selection operation, on a screen of the display device in accordance with a progression of the music piece. Here, musical score image data for use as the musical score data may be generated from performance data of the music piece, may be generated on the basis of musical score logic data of the music piece, or may be read out from the storage device.
With the prior art technique, sets of displaying musical score data (music content) are prestored in the electronic musical instrument (electronic music apparatus), or a desired set of displaying musical score data may be downloaded by a user via the communication I/F. If the user wants to increase the number of sets of displaying musical score data from the initially-stored number, several user's operations would be required for downloading a desired set from a server. In some case, the user may acquire and store displaying musical score data from a storage medium or the like into the electronic musical instrument, but it is possible that such musical score data from the storage medium or the like do not correspond to the capability of the electronic musical instrument into which they are to be stored.